


Put on the red light

by Catharrington



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bottom Billy Hargrove, Bottom Steve Harrington, Fake Dating, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Light Dom/sub, Love Confessions, M/M, Panic Attacks, Praise Kink, Prostitution, Shibari, Top Billy Hargrove, Top Steve Harrington, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24326182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catharrington/pseuds/Catharrington
Summary: ‘Steve is nice, clean, always wearing pressed clothes that smell like flowers and thick sweaters that never stretch out. Steve isn’t sure why he can’t keep himself away from the dirt that is Billy Hargrove.’
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 25
Kudos: 192





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is based off a prompt I got on tumblr as follows: 
> 
> _Anon: just woke up and I’m still prety high but I dreamt of this so I needed to tell my favorite harrygrove people. Ok so Billy is good at giving Steve the business and Steve is like whoooaaa this feels amazing I want to be the one to make billy feel amazing, but Billy’s never had that TRUST before because it was always dirty hookups blowjobs or whatever fo spare cash, never in the BUTT. But Steve is Steve so billy is like ok for him I will so his first time? Hes super nervous and shaky like dam Victorian virgin say what but Steve is all tender and it’s sexy soft but hallelujah prostate fun what you think?_
> 
> And I just wrote and kept adding to it and listening to Roxanne by The Police and made a whole painful hooker/Billy && college/Steve au. I really love this so please enjoy!

Steve is nice, clean, always wearing pressed clothes that smell like flowers and thick sweaters that never stretch out. Steve isn’t sure why he can’t keep himself away from the dirt that is Billy Hargrove. 

Billy lives above a take-out ramen shop teetering on the edge of China town. It was dark and dirty, mold in the corners that wouldn’t go way with bleach. The only view the red neon light outside that stayed on always. Flashing fresh home made noodles to go, Billy got a kick out of how right they were. 

He was supposed to be a fling. A one time thing. One text after a college party turned to social media invites, turned to emojis behind names, turned to 3am house calls.

Steve found he couldn’t get dirty enough. But he wanted so much more than Billy could give. He mentioned it once, sweaty and hot, washed in red lights, tangled in each other’s arms.

“Could I top once, you know, just to have some fun?” Steve was halfway joking. But the sharp blue in Billy’s eyes that flickered under the red worried him.

So Steve kept watching, asking, waiting, with hands softer each time. Kisses lingering longer. They stopped exchanging money after the first night. But if he still was Steve would fork out so much more. He had plenty left over from the allowance from his father, and even more coming in with the part time job he worked at when he wasn’t in school. Waiting tables and winking at mothers who had no idea the things Steve really wanted to get up to. But they left big tips. And Steve wanted to spend all his tips on bright blue eyes. 

He did just that in his own special way. Billy’s China town apartment was decked out with Billy’s collection of toys, to say the least, but Steve wanted something softer. Something nicer. So he bought a long coil of silk rope and a matching silk headband. He let Billy use them on him first and trembled apart under the attention his body felt. The way Billy’s hands grabbed around the knots pressing into his stomach and pulled his hips up as he fucked him down.

But if anything it made him more curious.

One night he rocked back on his heals away from their kiss and slipped the silk blindfold over Billy’s eyes. It was soft, smelt like flowers. And it wouldn’t stretch out.

“Let me take care of you, Bill?” He pressed the words as kisses against swollen red lips.

That night Billy laid out across his king size bed and squirmed against his thrift store blankets. Steve looped silk rope down his arms, each twist and turn and knot so important to him. Mirroring exactly what Billy could do.

Billy was holding his hands in a prayer againt his chest and Steve secured the motion with his tight knots. Sealed the knots with kisses. The fabric wasn’t scratchy and didn’t leave red marks as it weaved around Billy’s golden sun kissed skin, but still he was running hot from it.

His chest was jumping up and down, his taught stomach wobbling with each breath. Steve secured the last knot he planned right across his navel. He looped all the extra rope there to make a perfect rein for his thin fingers to curl around.

“You are doing so well, so perfect. Beautiful,” once Steve opened his mouth it was a flood gate of praise. Like the neon lights outside he covered Billy in warm words and warm hands.

“I’m going to put one finger in,” he whispered low. Billy grunted his reply. Steve’s finger was glossy with lube and went in easy, so soft, into Billy’s hole.

“Ah,” Billy exhaled, his lips turned up in a sneer. He was trying to control his reaction by not saying a word. There was no gag, Steve wanted him to be able to call out if he needed to. But still, Billy stayed quiet.

He lets his hitched breathing and cloudy moans talk for him.

Steve, petting across Billy’s spread thighs with one hand, slipped another finger inside. Billy’s body shook with another groan. He rolled farther up on the bed; his abs flexing like everything else around Steve’s fingers, and spread his legs wider.

“You look amazing on my fingers, Billy,” Steve whispered. His words no louder than the sounds of pushing in and out of Billy’s lube slick hole. Working the pink rim apart ever so softly, not aiming for a goal of stretching but feeling the warmth inside. Feeling across the bundle of nerves that makes Billy’s breath tune like a guitar.

“So soft and warm, so beautiful. You're an angel, Bill. You look like an angel.” Steve pulled out and pushed back in with a third finger. Billy’s head rolled back onto the sheets lax, his shoulders flexing with his moaning, letting his jaw hang limply open. Blond hair not trapped by the back silk of the blindfold fanned out behind him.

Steve wanted him to feel good, wanted to make this so good. So he worked against Billy’s prostate unstopping with shallow thrusts. His fingers slick as they pumped his hole. Unrelenting in his pace. Billy’s thighs spread impossibly wide, letting Steve see everything, and trembling as they did.

“Baby, Billy, my angel,” he cooed, he sang, he praises in a whisper hit across Billy’s heated moans. “You can cum.”

Billy did; his hips bucking weakly up off he sheets and meeting those shallow thrusts as his cherry red cock head pumped ribbions of cum over his flexing ab muscles. Getting the rope dirty with it. Getting the bedsheets dirty. Steve kept working his three fingers, curled at the tips and playing his prostate beautifully until Billy was milked.

Pulling out slowly, listening to his fingers give way with a kiss, Steve fell limply forward right above Billy’s face. His high cheek bones were flushed the same bright red as his lips dripping with drool. The lights outside caught the wrinkles of the blindfolds silky fabric and reflected red there too. “Are you okay?” Steve asked.

Billy only nodded. Swallows down hard, then nods again.

“You want me to continue?” Steve brushes a bit of hair off Billy’s face.

Billy nods quicker. That makes Steve laugh. He leans down to place a quick kiss to the blindfold before shuffling back.

Steve sits between Billy’s spread legs on his knees. He rolls the latex of a condom over the length of his cock and flexes his feet as he drenches it in more lube. Wants to make it easy as he can, can’t stand the idea of hurting Billy. Then, balancing on his knees, Steve wraps one arm around Billy’s waist to lift him up. He drags his ass over his thighs, feeling the give of the soft muscle, and slots their hips together.

“I’m going in, Bill, let me know if I should stop at any time?” There’s no reply other than a throaty huff. Steve steadies himself by the base and pushes into Billy’s stretched hole.

“Ah,” Billy’s whole body breaths out, his stomach sinking in from the exhale while his shoulders flatten back against the bed. He whimpers lightly, adjusting himself. Rolling his hips down onto Steve’s hard cock as it stuffs him full.

Steve watches down, his arm still cradling around Billy’s back keeping him in place. His other arm rubbing gently up and down his sides. Fingertips brushing silky ropes tied in their intricate knots and the windows of sweating skin.

“You feel so good inside,” Steve says just as gentle as the touch of his fingertips. “So good around me, Bill. Making me feel so good too.”

That drags out a deeper groan, a desperate wet sobbing thing, as Billy rolls his hips down. He’s searching for friction. Steve flexes his thigh muscles as he adjusts his cock just right before giving it to him.

“Yes, baby,” a whisper as he pulls out and almost all the way, stretching Billy’s hole with his mushroom head, then repeating as he slams back in. “Yes, perfect. Feel so perfect!”

Steve searches for a hold and gets his hand around the knot he tied around Billy’s navel. And the slag of the rest of the rope there. He grabs it tightly in his fist and the action brings Billy’s hips farther up with him. Steve’s bicep flexes as he uses the rope to steady his rhythm and fuck deep into Billy’s ass.

The motion gets him perfectly lined up with Billy’s prostate again, so perfect it has Billy purring around him like a cat. Like his Camaro thundering to life. He mewls and rocks and lets himself get held in place as Steve pounds down into him. His noises are unlike anything Steve could have imagined, but they are precious.

“Bill, I’m not going to-,” Steve bucks hard into Billy with one quick thrust, burrying deep, then he takes a shaky breath and keeps going. “I’m so close. So close inside your perfect ass. I’m going to cum inside, okay?”

Billy nods quickly, his own cock bouncing wild on his stomach bright red and messy with his already shot cum making it so wet and more pre dripping. It’s a puddle of slick and messy and dirty and so perfect around his cock.

Steve shutters to a stop, his hips snapping and burying himself as deep in that burning heat as can before he lets go with a choking sob of Billy’s name. “Angel,” he drips the word honey sweet.

“Steve,” Billy’s groans out with a voice sounding feral. His lips catch and curl around his teeth as he cums again, untouched. More cum slowly drools out across his stomach to join the mess. His chest his trembling with the effort to catch his breath.

“Steve,” he growls again. Rolling his hips as he rides out a second orgasm. Being greedy and keeping the girth of Steve’s softening cock against his prostate for as long as he can.

“I’m pulling out, Angel,” Steve warns as he does. Slipping out with a pop from his wet with lube hole. “Sorry, too sensitive.”

Billy isn’t moving his body other than the phoneminal efforts he takes for each breath. The exhales coming like moans each time. And his tongue circling around his lips just like a well fed cat.

As he slowly drops Billy’s hips back to the bed, Steve laughs. He has a goofy lopsided smile on his face as he pulls off the condom and wipes himself off with a rag that he knows Billy would chastise him for if he could see it. Using the rag to clean Billy off too, even if it’s a shame to see how dirty his stomach got go away.

“Blindfolds coming off,” he warns as shaky fingers undo the knot from the back of Billy’s hair. When the black silk drops away Steve doesn’t try and hide his smile. Billy doesn’t try to hide his either.

“How was it?” Steve asks. Billy simply shrugs. His grin sloppy. His blue eyes wet with unshead tears but sparkling so blue still under all the efforts of the neon red outside.

Steve shuffles on his knees again to Billy’s side, this time his hands work around the silky rope starting with the knot on his stomach.

His fingers are tired and shaky but it’s easy to unlace Billy. Easier than Steve would have guessed it to be. The act of letting Billy loose, unfurling the rope one knot by one knot, releasing his flushed skin to the drafty apartment’s air little by little. Each time one comes undone Billy breaths out a little hum of satisfaction.

It’s almost better than the tying.

Because now, he gets to be captured by those gorgeous wanting eyes of Billy unblindfolded. Steve is not scared, not flinchy, not drunk with fake courage like their first time. He doesn’t look away shy. No, Steve feels trusted with each tug of the rope. He feels open but held with those eyes in every sense of the word.

When the rope drops free from its last tangle around Billy’s praying arms, Steve is already missing how it feels around his fingers. But he curls it into a tightly formed ball and sets it off with the blindfold neatly on the bedside table.

Before Steve can settle back down two arms catch his waist. He’s pulled back to the bed, gently in their tugging. And he’s settled down with Billy laying to flush to his back.

There’s a part of him that remembers how he’s bolted from here before. How he’s scrambled to collect his jeans and keys and run. Text Billy later a rose emoji and say it wasn’t him. It was Steve.

But that was a while ago. A few rounds ago. Steve’s heart still burns with each tump. His blood collecting in his cheeks and under the patch of hair on his chest bright red just like the neon sign outside.

But now it’s not about him, it is about Billy. How he trembled and fell apart under him. How he trusted him with all that, with his dick when he could even see him. And now how he’s trusting Steve to comfort his sore body after the orgasm. 

Steve groans a little as he wiggles out of Billy grip. He turns on the bed, settling back down face to face with Billy’s surprised eyes.

“That was,” Steve can see all the adjectives printed on a dictionary page he could use, all the nice and long ones. He blinks and smiles. “That was... you,” he whispers.

Billy is turned over on his side to watch Steve. His hair fanned around him. Forhead sweaty and chest muscles bunched up with one drip of sweat disappearing between his pecs. He’s got a curled eyebrow and confusion on his face. “Me?” He rasps out.

“Yeah,” Steve brings his hands and his knees up to curl into Billy. Just a hair from touching him, a little hot for that at least now.

“You,” Steve breaths.

They lay for a moment just looking, watching the other blink and come back to Billy’s China town apartment. The silence is comforting in its promise of needing nothing from the other but their presence. 

Steve can think all he wants and dream all he wants. But he doesn’t have to say it right now.

Billy is the first to talk. He moves one hand ever slightly up to lay his palm over Steve’s chest. Fingers spread out and tangled into his large patch of dense chest hair. Billy’s hand is calloused, but gentle. He doesn’t move much, just keeps his hand splayed easy.

“I don’t think I told you,” Billy whispers. Steve searches his blue eyes for a sign of what’s to come, but they only wrinkle up with a fond smile. “You’re the first guy who ever touched me like that.”

Steve hopes Billy can’t feel how fast his heart starts beating. “Yeah, okay, yeah- no, that wasn’t brought up, Bill.” He giggles as his string of stuttering words make Billy’s smile wider.

Another shrug, this time only with the shoulder that isn’t supporting his weight on the mattress. Billy’s hand shifts with the motion and it feels a good heavy, like a ships anchor tethering him down.

“How was I? For your first time and all?” Steve asks.

He imagines for a moment he can read the waves, he can predict a storm or an ocean current. He imagines he’s a suffer paddled out on a board and with his legs and hands in the water can feel the swell of the waves as they are pulled by the moon.

Steve imagines he sees a wave in Billy’s eyes as he asks. A moment of something other than hands held over bar counter tops and jokes said over sloppy noodles. Or late night text messages and hurried sunset goodbyes.

But Billy’s eyes close. And his hand retracts from Steve’s chest hair. “You were you,” Billy jokes.

Remember, Steve hears a voice screaming in the back of his head, Billy doesn’t belong to you. To anyone. He’s got a phone for his family and friends and a second phone with his work contacts like a little black book. Steve forces himself to remember that yeah, he’s in Billy’s phone and he calls and texts and sends funny photos and all that shit. But at the end of the day. Steve knows his number is still in that little black book.

And even if Billy trusts him with all this, the tying and the untying, his heart still doesn’t belong to Steve.

Billy rolls over on his back and exhales a long breath. He lifts his arms over his head and stretches to get blood flowing. He’s beautiful, breathtaking and so flushed under his apartment lights it makes Steve want to scream.

“I’ve got to go,” he hurries out a small excuse before turning away from Billy to slip out of his bed. Against the floor his bare feet sound so loud. But he goes through the motions of putting on his shirt, his jeans, and his shoes. Slips his thick sweater on over his shirt and pulls at the collar because it’s choking him and he wishes he could stretch it out.

Steve can’t scream, so he starts feeling tears welt up in his eyes. He keeps his back turned to Billy in the small studio apartment the whole time. It hurts so bad, but he knows how to hide tears easy enough.

Hand on the door knob Steve is ready to leave. Billy hasn’t said one word to him. He doesn’t know if he is even looking some sort of way. Steve doesn’t want to get his hopes up on the rising tides that he imagines he might find there. So he grips the door knob and shutters with how cold it is.

“Steve,” Billy calls faintly. It’s a metal blade in his ribs. Twisting and jerking and forcing Steve to man up and turn around and look.

Billy has lifted himself up on his elebows, his hair a fucked out mess and skin painted artificially red. Glowing ethereal with it. There is only a sliver of his sheet covering his spent cock. He looks cut from marble or painted by a master of art, one of the two. Steve takes in everything, but cannot bring himself to meet blue eyes because that’s the part he longs to reach the most. 

“For a first time, I just... I’m glad it was with you.” He shifts his weight around on his shoulders making them flex. Making his tattoo jump. Making Steve’s cheeks wet.

“And, hey. Call me Angel more often, okay, pretty boy?”

“Sure, Angel,” Steve chokes out. Anything for you, Angel. I would die for you, Angel. I would live for you, Angel. Please love me back, Angel. But all Steve gets out is a pathetic attempt at a smile.

Then his turning the knob in his hand. And closing the door behind him. And already he’s wondering what shitty flower emoji he’s going to send to Billy at the ass crack of dawn to try and make any of this all right.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no plans of continuing this when I first posted it, but I couldn’t get this au out of my head.  
> And who doesn’t like a fake dating/ call boy au and messy messy feelings of longing???

Things don’t change much for them after that night. Steve can’t, and he has come to peace that he may never, turn away Billy’s calls. Or stop his fingers from dancing over the keys of his own phone when it’s been too long without. 

He feels like some addict. Like some scratching clawing thing amuck the inside of his throat when he’s without for too long. He knows, though he hasn’t come to peace yet, with the idea that his insides are going to spill out when Billy decides to call it quits. If he ever gets a different job. Or an actual significant other. Who can rope him down and support him in all the ways a floating ship out at sea deserves. 

Steve knows he’s going to die when that happens. He knows and still he yearns. 

Friday night, long after college classes have been let out, with the sun long gone from the skyline, finds Steve’s sitting at the small ramen take out stand under Billy’s apartment. The area, that would be a restaurant had it been normal, was one busy, steaming hot kitchen made noisy with the elderly couple that ran the place. They could be described as at each other’s throats, arguing every hour he sees them, if it wasn’t for the laugher. Or the quick peck on the lips when passing by each other’s stations. 

Steve wasn’t sure if they had converted an apartment into this, or had changed the restaurant to fit their needs, but he adores the place. Finds the small covered sitting area lining the front cozy. Lived in. Loved. The curtains are faded by the sun and the wood is so worn it’s soft to the touch, yet somehow smells delightfully like fresh wood.

Most people lean into the space just waiting on their pick up orders. That’s the advertised deal at least. But, a perk of being a tenant is they let Billy sit as long as he could want. 

Billy has lived above their restaurant-slash-home for years. He pays them rent first of the month on the dot, maybe a little bit more than they first required, so they never ask questions. So they liked him, like really liked him. 

Steve fiddled with his chopsticks. Glancing between the chunks of pork floating in the broth to the case of his phone turned upside down on the table. It was an unspoken thing between Billy and him to leave their phones, all three of them, out and ignore any notifications when they decided to play date. 

Play date, Steve mussed, that’s exactly why he was here groveling at Billy’s red light for. 

“They are going to get cold, pretty boy,” Billy nudged into his shoulder. Noticing the way that Steve wasn’t finishing his food. 

Steve shook his head, tossed his hair a little to the side to get it out of his way, and shrugged. “I’m trying to like- to think over here.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Billy teased. 

“Very funny,” Steve stabbed a large chunk of pork and shoved it in his mouth. Chewing in quick short bites. Gave Billy a long side eye before swallowing.  
“It’s a question I have for you,” Steve started. 

Billy simply stares, mid digging around his mouth for food stuck in his teeth with his devious tongue. Gave him a short nod to continue. 

“Great, uh, it’s a little bit of a weird request so like don’t feel like you have to agree, or anything. I’m just asking because like we are friends and— and like, you’re the only one I’m this close— or I guess familiar with, to ask such a weird, stupid thing—,”

“Steve,” Billy knocks his knuckles against the wood bar. Calling for his attention before leveling him with a humored smirk. “As cute as you are, just cut to the chase.” 

Steve blushes a little, pushes his hair back, trying to hide it with a cocky shrug. “It’s just ah- it’s just. It’s my dad’s shitty company is having this shitty anniversary party and I have been... telling them... something untrue.”

Billy and him don’t talk much about personal things, they argue about music and usually agree on movies, but their intimate personal lives are grey area. Better left unsaid in case it begins to mean something real. So Billy simply kept looking at him, asking for more clarification with his sharp blue eyes. 

“I’ve told my dad I’m dating someone,” Steve rushes out. His eyes back on his ramen bowl. 

“And so what? You ain’t dating someone?” Billy slowly asks. Steve shakes his head stiffly. And he thinks he might be able to hear the wheels turning deep inside Billy’s curly head of hair. 

“Oh, pretty boy,” he gets a sugary sweet tone, “you asking me to play pretend boyfriend?”

Steve groans, “I’m asking if you’ll be my pretend boyfriend for like one night, yeah!”

He gets a laugh, a rolling, throwing his head back laugh. Steve squares his shoulders as he peeks to watch Billy. 

“Are you quite done?” He quips. “I’m stupidly seriously asking this right now, like seriously.”

Billy holds his hands up, takes a moment to wash his laugh down with a swig of his imported beer before chuckling again. “It’s just... wild, babe,” he breaths out. 

Steve furrows his brows, wasn’t expecting that reply. “Wild?” He asks. 

“Yeah,” Billy takes another drink. Clanks the bottle down and is swirling his tongue around the flavor in his mouth. “Wild.”

He should have known this was going to be a failure. Billy wasn’t one to do favors much, and he wasn’t boyfriend material if the way he carried himself spoke any volumes. Steadying his breath, ready for the let down, Steve asked one more time. Point blank as an attempt to get to the bottom of Billy’s enigmatic words. 

“Would you be my date?” 

It hurt to watch as Billy mulled over his thoughts. Like there was a big debate inside his head: listing ways to get out or loose Steve’s number entirely. Steve figures it will be seconds and then Billy’s flipping him the bird and storming off. But then he doesn’t do any of that. Just looks down at his bowl in contemplation before shrugging. 

“Tell me about this anniversary party, pretty boy.”

“Uh, it’s for my dad’s law firm. It’s been open for 25 years now,” Steve pauses to huff a laugh, “so they are throwing a big party to bring in good luck for another 75, or some lame— lame shit like that.”

Billy has gone back to his noodles, slurping them down loudly enough to be cute. He swallows, doesn’t wipe the broth from his mustache. “And this has something to do with you and your fake boyfriend because...?”

One of Steve’s hands itch the back of his neck sheepishly, “yeah, uh. It’s because I have college credits riding on being an intern there.”

Billy nodded. “That’s cool, so you are an intern there. They all know you and overheard you bragging this big shit about a boyfriend, and now you have to show up-,”

“Only on paper!” Steve yelps out, interrupting Billy with a wince and his eyes closed. 

“What does that mean?”

Steve drags his hand from his neck down his face, feels how he’s blushing hard. “I don’t actually intern there. I’ve been in his offices like three times max. But my dad knows it helps out so he lets me bullshit it on my college schedule. And it’s my dad, see, that I kind of fibbed the most to.”

Billys back to grinning. Back to figuring shit out and piecing things together with a sly smile. “So your dad’s been the one bragging about this boyfriend lie. And now he’s invited you to come and show off your imaginary boyfriend at your imaginary internship?”

Steve scoffed at that, waving his hand around. How hard Billy hit the nail on the head had his head spinning. “Well when you put it like that it sounds ridiculous!” 

“That’s because it is ridiculous, babe,” Billy sounded sincere as he dragged Steve down. 

There was a moment of silence. Steve didn’t know exactly how to reply. Wanted to say yeah, it’s his messy life and yeah, he’s sorry for even asking. Wants at the same time to get down on his knees and beg for Billy to give him one day to pretend they were more than what they are. Wanted to explain he does have other friends he could ask. 

That all sounded like fat fucking chances. So, he rolls his chopsticks around in his bowl to fish out the last few noodles soggy on the bottom. Shoved them in his mouth and chewed them down. 

Swallowed them as if he could swallow his disappointment. The gunshot of ‘No’ resounding through his empty head. 

“Sounds like fun,” Billy speaks so softly Steve thinks he missed him. Thinks he imagined it. But he turns to look and is presented with a toothy smile akin to the one Billy wore cuddled up in bed, satisfied and warm. 

“Yeah?” Steve smiled back. 

“Sure, why not?” Billy laughed. 

“Thank you, seriously thank you so much, Angel.”

“Okay!” Billy rolled his eyes at that, but blushed up to his big ears. 

He pushed a couple folded money bills down across the wooden counter and motioned for Steve to follow as he stood up. “Let’s get back to my room before I change my mind.” 

The rope hisses as it moves through the pull system drilled into Billy’s ceiling. Steve feels his body move, lift, into the air until he’s standing on the tip of his toes. As if he were wearing high heels. He groans low and long, there’s a weightless that comes with suspension that makes Steve feel very relaxed. His head lazily tilts forward, his long brown hair spilling out around his head. There’s no bills to pay, no work to stress over. There’s only Billy’s ropes keeping him from floating right off the ground. 

From the side, Billy makes a hum off approval. 

“How’s that?” he asks. 

“Perfect,” Steve slurs back. 

Billy laughs quietly. He’s told Steve before that he always loved bringing Steve there, making his head usually skimming and flustered go warm as a cat in front of a fire place. Called it a ‘sub-space’ once when Steve was describing it. Post-sex sharing a cigarette. Steve never put much thought into the jargon of S&M, all the rules and terms. He didn’t want to experiment. Really, he only cared about being with Billy. 

Soft foot falls approaches Steve, Billy’s hands lift to push his hair out of his face, with gentle fingers that still feel rough on his skin. Tucks his hair behind his ear. So fucking gently. So raw. 

Like this, with his hands secure behind his back, Billy could kiss him. Could claim his mouth, bruise his lips with it. Steve opens his mouth whimpering pathetically as he all but begs for it. 

But Billy doesn’t, he smirks meanly as he turns his eyes and starts moving his hands across Steve’s body. Running his fingertips over Steve’s shoulder and then down the lines and lines of rope, stopping at his navel where they fork into the two knots and two lines of rope that circle Steve’s crotch. His cock fat against his stomach. Curved hard with interest. 

It gives a jump when Billy’s hands go close, excited to see him, and leaks a drip of pearl from his slit. 

Billy walks around to Steve’s back side. His fingertips staying the lightest touches over Steve’s skin, only barely remaining at all. Until he gets his hands around the two lengths of rope he left dangling from Steve’s backside. 

He lifts the soft material, spins it around in pretty loops, then he pulls them tight to run across one of Steve’s thighs. 

The material is always a beautiful contrast to Steve’s skin. Any color Billy has, black or red. Even his shorter length of light peach colored rope they’ve only used a few times, all of them look breathtaking against Steve’s creamy, velvet smooth skin. He’s not trying to brag, even though he’s spent enough money on products he should be able to, no. He’s only admiring. 

Billy’s skilled hands work the rope back and forth. Pulling each time so the rope lays flush. The muscle of Steve’s thigh is quivering from the attention. Each pull, each knot, each length of rope, makes his skin blush. Makes the fat on his leg squish around any shape Billy dreams of tying. 

He’s lifting Steve’s knee in the air, gently as if not to hurt him. “Is this alright?” He whispers into the shell of Steve’s ear. Makes his hair wet with sweat blown around. Sends shivers down his spine and up his arms bound across his back. 

Steve has to bite back how he could poke fun at Billy. They had already talked about the can and cannot parts. Steve had agreed to the position Billy asked to fuck him in as they walked into the bedroom. As they stripped clothes and picked what color ropes to use. Had to pick one long enough for Steve’s long legs. Yet he asked anyways. 

“Yes, yes,” he gathers his voice to whisper back. His head tilting back so his throat feels tight with each word. “Feels so good, Angel.”

Billy groans into his ear. Pulls the length of rope that’s left over and lifts it to tie along the metal in the ceiling. Gets it short so Steve’s leg hangs bent in the air. His cock is soaking wet down the front, dripping more and more pre cum as he gets manhandled into place. His hips tilt back ever so slightly to arch, moving inside the limited space of the ropes, to expose his hole already dripping wet with lube. 

He tilts his head back more as he lets out a long moan. 

Billy’s hand comes up the arch of his neck to curl into a fist in the back of his hair. His other hand is holding his own cock between his fingertips. His knuckles brush Steve’s curved asscheeks as he lines up. 

Even glossy with lube, and stretched out on fingers before the ropes were changed to take the weight off his feet, Steve’s hole burns as it stretches around Billy’s thick cock. 

It feels the same way every time. Every damn time. Like Steve’s getting the breath knocked out of him. Like he can’t breath, his brain slowing down and the world melting around him, even with his mouth open and sucking air. 

Billy sinks in until he’s flush, hips pressing into Steve’s ass until their balls push together. Slick with the lube and drooping hot, feral with their body fluids and so intimate it makes Steve’s heart fly. 

“You’re so beautiful, Stevie,” Billy whispers, “so fuckin gorgeous it’s crazy.”

He screws his eyes shut and focuses on the mushroom head of Billy’s cock brushing his prostate, and not on how much he wants to cry. 

That night Steve goes home. To his empty apartment. Not lit up with any neon lights, or Marlboro red’s cigarette smoke. Or crushed beer cans or wrinkled sheets draped across the floor. It’s not Billy’s. It doesn’t feel like home. 

Steve lays in bed and messages Billy a long string of messages about the time for the party. About his overbearing father who’s sure to ask too many questions. Even about the suit Steve’s planning on wearing. Anything to pass the time of just remembering he’s alone. 

Billy only replies shortly. A jab about his father ‘not being very attentive for a guy who asks lots of questions, but at least he ain’t a homophobe‘. 

And when Steve sends a photo he had taken of himself wearing the suit at an overpriced boutique shop, a casual albeit a slightly sloppy selfie of him standing in front of a mirror with a hand on his stomach and a grin on his face, Billy’s reply is a small heart emoji. 

To Steve, it feels huge against the backdrop of his empty apartment. Red, just as red as the neon flickering across Billy’s post-sex skin as he lays in bed. Steve can see it so clearly. 

He has to throw his phone on his bedside table and force himself to get some sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

The day of the anniversary party Steve’s hips are sore from spending all the night before with Billy. He insisted that Steve owed him that much, at least, because he was sticking his neck out. Quote: ‘doing ya a real favor here, so let me have a little fun’. 

And Steve likes fun; he loves Billy. 

But slipping into his tailored black slacks and buckling his leather belt reminded him how much he tended to roll over belly up for the asshole. 

“Did you really have to use the wax, like, right before this party?” Steve said right out the gate as he clicked across the screen of his phone and called Billy. Not hello, or morning, Steve always figured they were past formalities like that. 

Billy groaned from the other end, his voice loud and in an echo chamber. “You really weren’t complaining this much last night, babe,” Billy purred out. “As I recall I had you begging in such a damn pretty voice—,”

“Shut it,” Steve is blushing. His fingers pinching into his buttons as he does up his dress shirt. A simple white one. To wear under his black jacket that seamlessly matched the pants. 

The only color he wore was a faded aquamarine tie hanging limp from his neck. It’s the only piece of clothing he kept from his childhood of dressing up for his parents to dance around like a puppet on their strings. A gift, he can’t remember from who, but it was pure silk and soft to the touch. Hasn’t worn out in color or stretched quite yet. 

He left it untied, his last button open, and switched the phone to his other ear as he kept talking. 

“I’m going to cut you off if last night and my sore ass in any way hinders this stupid party, you hear me, Bill?” 

And Billy’s first reply is a laugh. His voice still distant from the phone. Small clicking noises in the background keep distracting Steve. “No you won’t, babe,” he says it so easily, so cocky, Steve is forced to agree with him. 

He stays silent, keeps listening to the way Billy moves around his apartment’s small bathroom. Steve’s picturing the products lined up on the floating shelves. The cologne with its cap off. A can of hairspray tilted over on its side. Sticky from use. And the curling iron grasped in Billy’s hands wrapping skillfully over and over around his long blonde hair. Clicking as it closes to seal in another perfect curl. 

“How much longer before you’re done getting ready?” Steve asks in a soft voice. 

Billy grunts before remembering he’s only on a voice call. “Give me 5 minutes then you can come pick my ass up.”

“Does it always take this long to curl your hair?” Steve pushes his tongue into his cheek as he waits for an answer. 

“Fuck you,” Billy sings back, his threat ruined by laugher, “art like this takes time, shit bird!” 

Steve’s laughing back too. He feels so light, so excited for what’s to come. He’s not nervous in the slightest. 

Even as he counts down the minutes before going to his car. Even pulling up outside the ramen shop and waving to Billy’s landlords as he idles his car. Their smiles match his own. 

And for once Steve doesn’t park and go up, Billy climbs down the steps and comes out. Drops down into the passengers seat of Steve’s car like he owns the place. A pair of navy slacks stretching lewdly across his bulging thighs. A strikingly blue dress shirt mostly left unbuttoned down his chest to show off the dip of his throat, giving a brief tease of his curly chest hair. A matching navy suit jacket bundled under his arm almost as if he grabbed it last second. 

Steve’s smiling as he takes him all in. How he’s cleaned up. How he’s dressed perfectly just for Steve. For this dumb stupid little favor. 

“What?” Billy huffs, his head shaking with it and he wasn’t joking about art. His curls bounce along. One even dangling down the center of his forehead that dances with every breath he takes. 

Steve shrugs. Doesn’t even try and hide the dorky smile on his face. “Didn’t expect you to clean up so well, I suppose is all.”

Billy huffs again, shuffling down in the seat. Spreading open his legs to get comfortable. “Yeah well, every man should own one good suit. Figured I needed one. And I’ve been told navy brings out the blue in my eyes.” 

He turns to Steve and gives a wink. A devil’s smile curling up his mustache. 

Steve giggles as if he’s a school girl getting flirted with. Shakes his head before finally turning back to driving the car. 

Focuses on getting to his dad’s work instead of his mind screaming how Billy only slightly implied he went out and bought a suit for this occasion. Went out and put time and money and the effort of knowing which colors would assist his perfect assets the best. 

All for Steve’s silly favor. 

It was making goosebumps travel under, painfully up, under his shirt sleeves and his stomach rumble with butterfly wings flapping to get out. 

When they drove up, the lot was mostly filled with cars and people coming and going. The Harrington law firm wasn’t big, per say. It was an old three story 1800-century fire hazard renovated into office spaces on the two bottom floors, and a sprawling storage area up top. 

For the party’s his father throws they take the effort of pushing aside the file cabinets and the bookshelves until the open space is fit for hosting a party. Move in a few tables, hang a few lights, hire a bartender with a fold out bar, it’s like any other rentable room. 

Steve parks as close as he can, sits in the car for a second looking up at the old place. 

The realization of the night began steeping into his Billy-induced good mood. His smile faltered. His hands gripped his steering wheel tightly. 

He had never been to one of his father’s parties like this. With the urge to do anything other than pass the time trying to see the bottom of his wine glass while being ignored. He gave up on trying to impress his dad before he could remember. Simply found his body moving with the motions to keep his college tuition getting paid. 

Steve felt his hands beginning to hurt. The leather of the wheel molding around his skin. 

Then, slowly as if he had all the time in the world and Steve wasn’t waiting for a clock to chime midnight, two pretty hands came up to button the top of Steve’s shirt. Folding the starched collar up and twisting his silk tie around in a first knot. Those hands, skillful and gentle. Cut short nails, stocky built thumbs, and a silver ring decorating his middle finger. Billy slipped the length of the tie through the last knot with an easy relaxed whoosh. 

He pushed the knot up into its space at Steve’s throat, and slowly folded his collar back down over the silk. 

“Hey,” he calls out to him, “Stevie?” Billy’s hands run down his chest and over his stiff arms. Feels like a swipe of a hot wash rag over muscles made sore with sex. 

“You ready for this, pretty boy?”

Steve doesn’t turn to Billy until he takes a few breaths, swallows three times. Finally looks at him with a shaky smile. “I’m ready,” he exhales with a nod. 

Billy smiles, squeezes his biceps hard as if to ground him to the present, before climbing out the car. 

They walk shoulders together into the double doors held open by stoppers. Follow the glossy printed signs that point upstairs to the festivities. At the top of the steps there’s another sign, a long gaudy thing that says ‘Lucky Quarter Year’ in curvy gold lettering. 

Billy lifts one hand to slap against it as they walk under. Steve turns to him with a glare, silently threatening. 

Billy simply shrugs, mutters “just wanna rub some of that good luck, babe?”

“Sure,” Steve replies, rolling his eyes. 

Around them the room is bustling. The tables are all filled with conversation, waiters with food scurry in and out of the small groups people have gathered in. 

The bar is surely more extravagant than Steve would have given his father credit for buying. Covered in an equally ugly gold cloth that hits the floor, it’s counter is long enough to fit two bartenders behind it and takes up most of one wall. 

Billy doesn’t waste any time. He nudges Steve in the ribs before pointing towards it. “Free booze?” He asks like a high school student wondering if a house party was worth going to. 

Steve should really stop rolling his eyes if he doesn’t want them to actually roll away. “Yes, it’s all on the house. Super important party, remember Bill? Not a good place to get drunk?”

“Yeah, I ain’t gonna get drunk,” Billy defends himself as he leads them over to the bar, “just wanna get nice and comfortable for meeting your pops is all.” 

He orders two of the same thing, tallest flutes of champagne they have, turns to Steve with one outstretched. And a smile on his face. 

“We are celebrating,” he drawls the word out, guts it and spills its entrails over the bar for Steve to read, “ain’t we?” 

So Steve takes his offered flute and holds it up, clinks the glass together and downs the yellow liquid in three desperate gulps. Sets the glass back down with a click. 

Doesn’t look at Billy to see how his face must be twisted with judgment. Maybe, if he’s truly lucky, with worry. 

Steve looks out along the people gathered. Scans the crowd to try and find his father. Of course Steve doesn’t have to search for very long before the man sees him. Grey hair pushed back by gel and a comb, he shared Steve’s square jaw and height but had very different eyes. His hidden by a large pair of tortoise shell glasses. Expensive looking, just like his well tailored suit glossy in the strobe lighting. 

A huge grin cracks across his face as he meets Steve’s eyes, right before he’s hurrying to excuse himself from the conversation he was in. 

Steve turns to Billy to give him a quick heads up. Points over his shoulder where his dad is walking to them. 

Billy paints on a perfect grin. Swirling around his glass that’s only missing a sip. 

“Steve,” Mr. Harrington greets, his hand clasping down on his son’s shoulder. 

The padding on Steve’s jacket contorts weirdly, just as crooked as Steve’s feelings under the full attention of his father. He nods his head and glances down. If for no excuse other than to not make too much eye contact. 

“Hey dad, nice set up.” He quips. 

“It’s a party that happens once in 25 years, Steve, no expenses spared!” Then he gets a throaty laugh. Steve knows how much it must hurt inside for his dad to be cutting the check for this night. He’s always been a practical man, big picture and futures. loving family trapped behind a white picket fence. 

Steve feels so small, so out of place, under his shadow. 

He stays silent. Watching from under his eyelashes as his dad examines his face, then flicks over to Billy for a second, before he snaps out of it and realizes he has to talk. Can’t just send an email or text instead of talking to the old man. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Dad, this is Billy Hargrove.” He steps out from the hand on his shoulder. Gets close to cup his hand around Billy’s elbow. Holds on to it like the handle of a shield. “My boyfriend. Bill, this is my dad!” 

Billy shoves out his hand before Steve finishes. A proud smile decorating his face as Mr. Harrington scoops it up into a tight grasp. 

“Bill!” his voice is so loud, “so good to finally meet you! Please, call me Thomas. Or, rather, I’m if not being too fast-,” his eyes turn back to Steve for a second, “call me Dad!” 

“No,” Steve cuts Billy off before he can even open his mouth to reply. “No, no no- yeah, sorry that’s not...,” he swallows all he wants to say. All he wants to throw up about how he can’t have Billy. How the walls are up and the curtains are drawn. And how he can’t swim out to the ocean or the riptides will drag him under gasping for air. The red light is steadily on. 

Steve shakes his head, takes a long breath through his nose that annoyingly smells of Billy’s cologne.

“We’re not quite there yet,” he settles on. 

His dad gives him a confused look. Steve not having plans to get married doesn’t fit into his walls of white picket fences and wrap around porches. 

Billy takes Steve‘s hand where it’s balled into a fist at the front of his slacks. He works the painfully tight fingers open before pressing his flute wet with condensation into Steve’s clammy hands. 

“Ya see, Tom,” Billy starts. His voice fluttery and artificially sweet. “He’s just trying to light a fire under my ass to pop the question.” 

They laugh together, it’s fake from both sides. Both voices Steve’s translated so well inside his head to know when they are full of shit. Even if he doesn’t have the balls to call them on it, he isn’t dumb enough to not know. 

His father obviously sour, his life until then spent wanting a daughter to marry into the family and give him another try at a successor. A grandson to throttle as he had Steve until he becomes the bread winner he never could. 

There was a force in how tolerant he was being until Steve’s adventuresome gay phase went away. 

And Billy, well that was all acting. All a show for the crowd. The curtains hang thick and red and velvet, they hold open only by a single golden rope. Ready to snap closed after the show at any second. 

Steve turns his face away, taking the champagne flute Billy gave him down in another few quick gulps. His throat stretching and burning and it felt good for something to feel real. His own words about Billy not drinking rang in his head. But he could just add the word hypocrite with liar, what’s another failure on the list. 

“That must be terribly confusing. Between two men, who does get down on one knee?” His dad asks. Head tilted to the side as if examining animals in a fucking zoo. 

Billy shrugs. Runs his tongue over his bottom lip. It’s a nervous tick, Steve knows. “Whoever ain’t got bad knees from playing basketball back in junior high, I suppose?” Billy jokes. 

It works, and it makes Steve’s father slap a hand around his stomach in laughter. Billy’s laughing too a horrible low tone sound that stirs Steve’s stomach. 

“I have so many questions. This is all so interesting, isn’t it Steve?” his dad keeps prattling on. 

The corners of Billy’s mouth are going white with how tight his smile is. Steve can feel the tension building, feel a set of eyes turn to him, but he doesn’t reply. Only tilts his head down with his now empty glass. Let’s his hair flop forward over his forehead to cover one eye. Hairspray can’t hold for long when he’s drowning. 

There’s a louder, farther away jingle of noise. And Steve’s dad turns with a sharpness to his eyes. A group of people just stepped into the party with wide, searching eyes. More people to introduce himself to. The busy life of a high brow. 

He straightens out his own jacket, nodding towards the other group. “Please excuse me, boys, I fear I am a busy host. Do not leave, however, you are far to fascinating to leave alone!” He scurries away back out into the crowd before the last word even leaves his mouth. 

Billy turns to Steve like he wants to talk. Steve lifts his hand, working double time to silence Billy and ordering two more glasses from the bartender. 

Steve takes the glass as soon as it wets the bar and brings it to his nose. Breathing deep. But it’s not near strong enough to get the smell of Billy’s cologne off him. Pushed right up next to his arm and smelling like his pillowcases back home. Home, atop a ramen shop in China town. Not in this penguin suit with his father. 

Steve’s daydreaming about Billy’s home. 

He swings back the flute glass so quick the rim nearly cuts into his big nose. 

“I get why you wanted someone here,” Billy drawls out. Sounds like a sentence he settled on after mulling over a couple others. 

Steve shakes his head. Keeps looking down at the bar top. 

“Guy got issues,” Billy continues in a drawl, “thinks his son takin’ dick is some science experiment. He always like that growing up?” 

Steve pushes Billy’s drink towards the man so he isn’t tempted to down that one as well. Though, he still is tempted. “Like what?” He asks quietly as he tries to keep up with the noises not only inside his head. 

“Detached,” Billy says. 

That makes Steve’s breath hitch. Everything’s all summed up in one little word. One neat package with a bow on it. His father had always been an asshole, but more so he was gone most of the time growing up. As soon as he could feed himself and get himself to school, he was left alone. Steve had started using the word abusive when he started respecting himself more, and sure... detached.

“Yeah,” Steve sighs out. His throat raw with it. 

Billy finally takes his drink in his hand. Only sips at the rim. His posture so nice and open, a contrast to the comfortable slouch Steve knows he usually has at their ramen counter. He shrugs, smiles over the rim of his glass. Holds it up like a little toast before taking a proper drink. 

Steve turns his head back down to the bar. He wants to shrink up into a ball under the counter. Wonders of the tenders would let him, if they would even care he was under foot. Maybe they would just step over him and kick him to the side as everyone else had already done. He could be fine with that. He was used to that. 

“Hey,” a gentle hand worked its way up his sleeve. Tugging at his elbow. “Ain’t I supposed to be showing your pretty ass off?” Billy asks. 

Steve huffs out a wet laugh. Didn’t know when exactly he got choked up with tears stuck in his throat. He nods. 

Playing this role with Billy had turned out much harder than he could have ever imagined. 

“Then let’s hit this dance floor?” Billy’s voice stays soft. Playful and light, solid in its weight but always soft. 

Steve turns to him, blue eyes so damn close. No red light changing them or blurring them. Just blue. Close enough to kiss. He nods again. Gently.   
Billy smiles and takes his hand. 

They walk out to the small floor set off for dancing. A sticker was laid out over the antique wood as a temporary mat, large black and white squares. Billy could fit in one and Steve wrapped his arms around those navy blue shoulders and fit in the other one. 

They felt like pieces on a chess board. Pawns, and knights, and all those carved wooden pieces scraping across where they’ve been ordered to go. They sway lightly to the piano music drifting across the floor almost too lowly.

Billy’s hands cup around his waist so softly, so warm. His grip is gentle beneath his jacket and around the line of his belt. Steve’s felt it a thousand times before but it always feels the same. Always feels like slipping on a warm jacket, a fluffy thing with a high collar. Zipping it up to his neck and borrowing his nose in it. The teddy bear fleece light brown and long where it touches his face. 

Billy feels like a jacket fresh from the dryer each time. And it doesn’t make sense, because he’s not. 

He’s dirty and smelly snd his clothes are old as his rotting apartment. But Steve can’t lie to himself. He leans his head limply forward to let his nose disappear into Billy’s hair. Using the patch of curls right above his ear to loose himself in. 

Under his hands he can feel Billy’s chest shake with a laugh. “You’ve had like 6 glasses already, Stevie?” Billy’s tone is same he uses when he begs to cum one more time. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk. Can you warn a guy; are you a cute drunk or a messy drunk?”

And that’s right. Steve instantly feels it boil under his skin that was once so warm. Now it burns red hot with embarrassment. 

He feels like such an idiot. 

Billy doesn’t know him in any way other than how he cums. He doesn’t even know what Steve’s studying in college. Billy isn’t his, he isn’t his boyfriend and this isn’t a real dance. They are showing off the crowd of his father’s coworkers. 

They are playing the parts of good little chess pieces. 

When Steve goes home that night it’s not going to be to warm jackets or take out ramen. It’s not to pillows that smell like cologne or flickering neon lights. 

It’s to nothing. 

Steve’s going to go home to nothing. 

His feet suddenly stop in their swaying. Catching like a bug in a glue trap. He yanks his head back from Billy’s hair and looks down at him, eyes wide and glossy. 

Billy’s got a smile in his face. He is laughing, but it’s all not meeting his sea foam eyes. It’s as fake as the gold glitter on the posters, or the gold table clothes at the bar. It’s all fake. And it’s all a showman’s velvet curtain hiding the real Billy. 

Steve juts his arms out so he’s holding Billy at length. 

He’s been here before, jumping from the bed like fire is in his ass and heading for the door. At least this is familiar. At least this is real. 

Steve turns around and walks away so quickly his pants make static whooshing noise. One hand cupped around his stomach, the other around his mouth. Trying to keep the salt water waves from getting into his lungs. From drowning him any more than they have. 

Steve turns to run away from the dance floor. Billy calls after him but Steve can’t listen, doesn’t want to listen, just wants to run. 

Rushing past, he sees his father talking to some pretty girl in a pretty satin dress that smiles at his every word. Before it would have been: ‘Steven— you’ve simply must meet Mr. Byrd’s daughter, she’s a lovely lady your age’. Now Steve is sure it would turn to talk of a surrogate mother who’s just tickled pink to help the needy gays. Who tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles at Billy as she says how available she is. How good she can cook. How she can knit mittens for the baby so it doesn’t scratch little fingers down it’s little face. 

How she’s crafted perfectly to be the strong, dependable anchor to weigh a ship like Billy down. She’s not floaty, not like Steve. 

He takes the steps two at a time, his dress shoes sound loud as gunfire going off. But can’t hear anything with the blood rushing through his ears, a heat of embarrassment boiling him alive up to his eyebrows. Of anger directed at everyone but mostly at himself. 

Steve rounds the grand steps and darts towards the back exit.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve rounds the grand steps and darts towards the back exit. Outside his father’s work, hidden from the party upstairs, there’s a decent sized porch in what could have been a garden area, now was just bushes kept square by a landscaper company a couple time a month. 

Instantly, he lurched himself at the white painted banister. Leaned over the side of it and looked down at the well trimmed grass. His father must have have it mowed right before the party. Always wanting to present his best face for the guests. 

Steve wanted to throw up on it. 

Wanted to spill the warm champagne swimming around his gut. He opened his mouth and gaged towards the grass but nothing came out. Only fat drips of hot saliva pooling under his tongue. 

He gathered a good glob to spit, wasn’t good enough. Steve felt his stomach twisting and knotting, not in a fluttering butterflies way. Not in the way that mattered. His stomach also hurt where he was leaned over the banister. The wood digging into his gut making it more scrambled. More separating his guts from his skin. 

He wished he could fly away from it all, be lifted up on his toes and escape the colored lights of the spin wheel as it went round and round painting shadows on the walls. 

He gagged again. Nothing came out. 

Steve couldn’t stop the whimpering noise that came out when he felt hands cup his hips. Billy’s palms were warm, gentle, againt the thin line of his dress belt. 

“I knew you were drinking too fast,” Billy muttered to right next to the shell of his ear. “I’m sorry, I really should’a stopped you.” 

And Billy’s apologizing, in his deep voice right into the shell of Steve’s ear. His words accented by his thumbs rubbing comforting circles into his dress shirt. 

Steve felt it again. The lurching in his stomach. The mixing of alcoholic and stomach acid. But it’s not vomit coming out, its tears. 

Steve can’t keep it down this time, can’t run away and separate himself from the rising panic under his skin. Can’t hide from it by running, he’s trapped by the banister. And can’t fix it by a silly apologetic flower emoji, not when he’s right here in Billy’s arms. 

And suddenly, he realized his breath was being stopped behind a wall of a sob caught in his throat. Once, twice, he sucked in a deep breath. But it felt like nothing could help. 

His head was spinning painfully. Throat bulging with the effort to try and get air in. His eyes burnt and stung and he made it worse by blinking rapidly to try and keep them at bay. But he couldn’t, tears fell in big fat drips down his face. That hurt more than the keeping. 

Steve slumped forwards against the wood, his arms shaking like the last leaves of Autum clinging to dead, blackened branches. 

Billy caught him with a startled gasp, wrapping his arms around Steve’s middle and hauling him off the wood. Before he could tumble over onto the well trimmed grass. They took quick steps backwards. Moving as one mess of shivering limbs until Billy’s back hit the white siding of the house. 

“Stevie,” he said, voice a hushed coo, “Stevie, whats going on?”

Steve felt himself get moved around in Billy’s arms. Felt himself get shifted so his back was the one flush against the cold house walls. But it all felt like a movie playing back, viewing his eyes through the static of an old television set while he lounged under a pile of blankets, unable to do anything but shiver. 

Steve kept his face down, even when Billy was tying to manhandle him to loosen up, Steve couldn’t lift his head if he wanted to.

“Talk to me, Stevie,” Billy begged. And it sounded so beautiful. So nice, to hear him beg. 

Steve couldn’t take the idea that he was Billy’s first time he ever begged for something. Couldn’t take that it didn’t matter— that it was all a lie. 

He felt his eyes start rolling to the back of his head. His fingers clawing against Billy’s front, his new navy blue jacket he bought just for tonight, as he tried to dig out of the plastic wrap covering his mouth. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t reply, couldn’t even breath an answer back. 

“Shit—,” Billy must have finally realized it wasn’t a typical Steve freak out. Wasn’t him sulking around or running away with his tail between his legs and unshed tears. No, this was Steve about to claw his Adam’s apple straight out of his throat with his short chewed off nails in wild desperation. 

“Okay, shit, okay!” Billy scrambled around himself trying to figure out what to do.   
He felt up and down Steve’s arms that shivered as if he came up from icy waters. His fingers ghost playing piano keys with melodious nervous ticks. 

Billy pulled them as if to hug, but then changed. Instead, he pulled Steve’s arms to fold in a prayer over his chest. Pinned them roughly but tenderly in a locked position to Steve’s chest. 

The same position he’s so fond of tying Steve’s arms in when they spend their nights together laying down in bed. 

Like this, Steve could feel how his chest was jumping with each gulp of aborted air. How his ribs were shifting uncomfortably under his thin dress shirt. How it didn’t feel right, none of it felt right. 

Billy held his arms for a second, pushing them as if to order Steve to keep them there, then moved his skilled fingers to work on Steve’s tie. He undid the knot he had wordless tied earlier for him that night. Popped off the buttons of his shirt tight around his neck. Steve’s throat instantly felt thankful for the lapse in pressure across his windpipe. 

He finally sucked in a breath, Billy’s hand not holding the tie helped coax it out of him with a wide palm sliding down his throat. 

Steve’s eyes were still blurry. Unfocused with how he couldn’t focus on anything. And reddened with his tears clinging to his eyelashes. How they hadn’t fallen he doesn’t know. At this point it wouldn’t be the most debilitating sign of weakness he’s shown Billy all night. 

But then, they went black. 

Billy lifted the silk aquamarine tie to gently press over Steve’s eyes. Pushing the fabric there and softly, like he was scared to hurt Steve, like they hadn’t worn a blindfold a thousand times before, Billy ever so slowly pulled the fabric tightly. His thumbs made a quiet whooshing noise across the silk as he twisted it up to tie in another knot behind Steve’s head. 

With the darkness came a peace. Came an understanding that what was happening was something out of Steve’s control by that point. All power passed over to Billy’s skilled fingers in a quick snap. 

Steve kept his hands folded in a prayer over his chest. And he started breathing again. Long, shallow breaths. Just as Billy had taught him all those times in his little apartment above his ramen shop. If the ropes suddenly feel too tight. If you suddenly feel uncomfortable not being able to move your arms, or your feet, to remember to breath first. Because it might feel claustrophobic sometimes to be tied. 

And secondly to use your word. 

“Bill,” he exhaled. 

Billy petted down the back of his hair. Stroking his fly away chocolate locks and the knot tied right in the middle of them. It felt very peaceful, very grounding, to be reminded of the rope. 

“Right here, pretty boy. Ain’t gonna leave ya.” Billy’s voice was like charcoal coals moving around in the depths of a fire. Low and warm and closer than Steve should ever be to a fire, if he didn’t want to get burnt. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve rasped out before he could stop himself. “I’m such a damn— a damn idiot! I can’t even breath right!” 

Steve felt better with the covering over his eyes and his hands being occupied with something to do. He shook with the effort to stay still but did it always. The want to make Billy proud in his listening out weighed the need to shuffle. His floaty need to dart. 

His need to make billy proud of him loosening his lips and letting all the shitty feelings he’s kept hidden in the petals of rose emojis. 

Bright red, and never wilting. 

And never good enough. 

He sucked in a ragged breath that tasted like champagne and blood. Stomach acid and Billy’s cologne. When he exhaled, his words poured out. 

“I’m sorry... I can’t even talk right. Instead of talking I just run away. Never tell you about what I want to tell you. Ya’know, I’m such a fuckin’ coward? I’ve been using you for sex like a fuckin’ coward for so, so long— and, and,” Steve drew in a wet breath. Sent it out in a chuckle. His hands vibrating as he wishes he could reach forward and pet across Billy's soft face. 

“And you know what, Angel? you’re better than that. You’re better than me! You’re so caring, and attentive, and smart... you’ll make something of yourself. Make the whole planet see that Angel glow— while I have to fuckin’ lie on my college credits to get a degree. And I have to lie about having a boyfriend to my fuckin’ dad who I don’t even like! I’ve hated him since high school, ya’know?”

He choked on a dry laugh, knew he was crying. But if he was already this far why not fully walk into the waves of the ocean with these rocks in his pockets. 

“But I guess you wouldn’t. Because we are not friends.” 

Steve couldn’t stop himself this time. His breath caught in his throat as he surprised himself, timidly reaching out his fingertips to trace along Billy’s face. 

With his eyes blindfolded, he guessed where Billy’s features were. He shuffled across his mustache awkwardly until he cupped both hands around Billy's jaw. In his trembling fingertips, he could feel the way Billy swallowed nervously. 

Steve knew this was it. This was him pulling the plug on the neon light of his life. 

This was him shooting himself in his foot and spilling his guts. This was Steve dying. But he had billy in us hands. And he didn’t know how much longer would. 

“You don’t even like me. You won’t even kiss me when we fuck,” Steve chucked dryly, “And it makes me so sad. I cry all the time at night. I feel like I’m making rust gather inside my bones with how much I cry.”

Billy leaned forward, not Steve but Billy leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together. 

He sucked in a breath that tasted like sea salt. Steve wanted to drown in it. He walked out farther into the oven with all these heavy rocks, all these damn emotions trapped in his pockets to weigh him down. To let the ocean waves of sea foam green eyes kill him. 

“But I can’t,” Steve pushed his words out, “I can’t. Fuckin’ admit! How much I love you!” 

Voice cracking at the end. His desperation and longing coming to the surface and ripping his voice apart. He wasn’t strong enough to do this. Couldn’t even look Billy in the eyes as he confessed. Took comfort in the tie Billy had used as blindfold much like he uses the blindfolds in his bedroom. On the only bed that’s ever felt like a home to Steve. That he will never get to come back too. 

Under his hands he felt Billy’s breath continue. He felt his throat jump with the vibrating of his swallows. Billy sort of matched his nervous twitchings and Steve thought for second he might say the same thing back. 

But the silence stretched on. The music of the party was cloud coverage in his foggy ears and his damn sub-space. 

Steve let out a low groan. He drearily shook his head. “You don’t have to finish out the night. If you want I’ll— I’ll give you a ride home. And then you can lose my number and never see me again—,”

“Stop talking,” Billy whispered. 

Steve felt the movement in his throat more than he heard the words. His hands slipped farther down to wrap around Billy’s skin. To try and get as much as he could for the last seconds he could. A dreary sob escaping his lips as he started to ask what he meant. 

“Just, shut up?” Billy whispered. His voice getting louder as his face got closer. 

Steve drew his hands back. Holding them obediently over his chest in a prayer pose. He straightens his back and closes his mouth and tries to obey. Tries to shut up so Billy could formulate the right words to tell him off, to scream at him. To bash his bones against the waves until they crumble to dust. 

To get up and run away, float back out to the perfect solitary confinement of the ocean, all cranberry colored sunlight sparkling over the waves. Steve could see it so perfectly. Had pictured it a thousand times. 

He never wrote into his fantasy of heartbreak the feeling of Billy’s lips pressing against his own. 

He let out a startled, wet sobbing noise. Blubbering against Billy’s lips as they moved so kindly, so gently to press into his own. With the same fierceness he used to control the ropes. The same calm dominance that had Steve falling for him in the first place. He used that in his kiss. And Steve sobbed. 

Like a drowning man out at sea, finally being thrown a raft, he lifted his hands to wrap around Billy’s shoulders. His short nails clawed at the fabric so desperately he might be leaving scratches. 

And if he was, he didn’t care. Marking each other up was what they did. It’s all they knew. 

Billy kissed until he didn’t have any breath left. And when he came up for air, he left his teeth in Steve’s lower lip so he pulled it taught. 

They stayed slouched on the wall, pressing their foreheads together. Breathing out and in the same warm air. Sea salt fresh with Steve’s tears between them. 

Maybe marking each other up wasn’t the only thing they could do, could be. Maybe they could be softer touches. Laying in bed in the cracking of daylight, or curling close together under the covers at night time. Shared cups of coffee rather than ramen noodles. Shared kisses. A shared home. 

“If you ever want to shut me up, that’s a really fantastic way of doing it,” Steve giggled into Billy’s lips. 

Billy swooped forward and kissed him again, squishing Steve’s nose with his own stumpy one. It took Steve’s breath away how good of a kisser Billy was, how he lifted his big palm to cup Steve’s jaw and move his head right where it needed to be. The pad of his thumb swiped over his cheek bone gently. Rough with wear, rough with the tying and the untying of the ropes. But so, so damn gentle on his skin. 

Billy pushed his head forward so their brows met, he could feel the fabric of the tie pressing harder against his closed eyes. More tears that were clinging to his lashes got blotted by the expensive silk. Steve hopped down to his cowardly core that the tie would be stained with them. Then maybe he could have something to truly remember Billy with when he leaves. 

Thinking so hard, praying with his hands still clutching into Billy’s jacket shoulders, he didn’t feel the fingers working on the knot. 

Didn’t feel the way they expertly unwrapped the loops and let the fabric free until it was slipping down from his eyes. 

“Blindfolds coming off,” Billy says it a little too late, but the sentiment of the consent makes Steve’s heart flutter about in his chest. 

The tenderness of his wide, blue eyes, blinking with the same rapid emotion Steve’s own were. It was like the first time seeing them, or well the second time. But they mirrored that night. Mirrored it exactly. Billy doesn’t try to hide his smile, and Steve doesn’t try to hide his either. 

“I get it,” Steve shakily starts, “if this ruins everything—,”

“Nah, pretty boy, you don’t really get it.” Billy takes down his hands to play with the tie in his lap. His curls are still perfect, blond and waved, like sand flowing under the low tide. His eyes and hands are nervous and Steve’s never seen him so beautiful. 

“I guess I don’t. Isn’t this where you tell me how unprofessional this is?” Steve wants to pull his eyes up. Rather, he keeps holding into his shoulders like a lifeline. 

“That would have been back when I stopped charging your ass, huh?” Billy bites back dryly. 

Steve smiles just to hold back his tears. Here it comes, the soft let down. 

“Nah...,” Billy wraps the tie twice around either palm before pulling it taught. The stain of tears still wet is expertly placed right in the middle. Right where Billy’s nervous eyes won’t look away from. 

“Pretty— no, Steve. Steve. I’m not going to leave.” 

Like daggers, like waves, like ice, like every god damn sharp thing Steve’s ever day-dreamed about getting killed by, Billy’s eyes turn up to meet his. Lock into his own the way his ropes have woven permanent channels into Steve’s heart. 

Steve smiles back at him, if he had any tears left he's sure he would be crying. Maybe he is. He can’t look away to check. 

“Been thinking about you, Stevie, and I’m pretty damn sure it’s the same sappy way you’ve been thinking about me. So no, I ain’t gonna leave. Or loose your number,” Billy paused to laugh. Steve felt his own bubbling up, as if the happiness and relief couldn’t be contained by simply a shared smile. 

Billy turned his eyes down for a moment to fold the tie, slipping it into his front suit jacket pocket, then looked back up to Steve. 

“I ain’t never really had a steady relationship before. Never tried. Never had to try. But for my first one, if you’re serious, I want it to be you?”

Steve crinkled up his nose, tilting his head to the side as he viewed Billy from a whole new light. “You’ve never? Had any girlfriend? Any high school sweetie?” 

Billy shook his head. The blush growing over his cheeks, over his freckles, was very real. 

“Oh my god, you’re not kidding. How could, what I don’t— why?” Steve clutched his hands into Billy’s jacket as he tried to focus from being too much of a stuttering mess. “You’ve never dated someone?” he settled on. 

It felt so much the same as being Billy’s first in bed. The swooping in his gut as if taking a plunge down the hill of a roller coaster. The excitement mixed with the fear. The worry that something could mess up, that the ride could break and bend and send him plummeting down to his death. That feeling hand in hand with the excitement, the trill, of being any where close to the Angel that is Billy Hargrove. 

Billy scoffed, rolling his eyes so hard his head moved with it. That little curl down the center of his head jumping. Tempting Steve like a mouth-watering cat toy. “I’m on a date right now, ain’t I, pretty boy?” He drawled out the words. Looked at Steve with sharp eyes before saying, “Ya’know, why buy the cow when the milk and all that shit.” 

That hurt down in Steve’s gut. He was one of those guys, one of the line of people buying the milk. Disappearing into Billy’s red light before running back out. His phone number and his whole bouquet of red roses nestled into a work book. 

It hurt to think that’s what it was, but maybe. Maybe it wasn’t what it was. But only what it started as. And maybe it doesn’t have to always be. 

Steve sucked in a sharp breath. He untangled his iron grip from Billy to hold out his hand palm up between them. “Here,” he shook it around once. 

Billy simply blinked at him. 

“I’m guess you brought your phone, right? Let me see it?” And he wanted to order, but he wanted to do it gently. Give Billy enough room to wiggle from the ropes. 

With a pursing of his lips, Billy took his phone out the deep inner pocket of his jacket. 

Steve curled his long fingers round the glossy black metal. But kept his hand out. Nodded down at the thing with a knowing eyebrow twitch. Then Billy reached back in and took the other out, the one that was older and scuffed. The one that was loved and held so close and dear to his heart. His personal phone. 

He held that one close while Billy reached forward one finger to unlock his work one with a complicated combo. 

“I’m not going to be like that, okay?” Steve said it with a voice as pleasantly soft as his finger tips pressing into the contacts button. Pulling up his name. And swiping to delete the listing. “I’m not going to be just— just some call. As long as you’ll have me I want this to be real?” 

He presses the work phone back into Billy’s hand. Keeps his personal phone in the other, thumb working across the scuffed glass to put his number into the keyboard. 

Between them a jingle goes off. A low strand of piano keys that sound like the start up to a Poison song. Looping as the phone tucked into Steve’s jacket rings and rings. Billy accepts his other phone back with a laugh. Rolling his eyes, again, at the ringing. 

They both suck in a breath. A gulp of fresh air. Maybe a new beginning, a new life. Steve’s already dreaming of how it’s going to feel waking up in Billy’s apartment. He knows it’s going to feel like home. Wonderland. Wonders if Billy takes his coffee as dark as he likes his beer. 

“Let’s get back in there, right?” Billy interrupts Steve’s thinking by pushing a strand of hair back over his face. “They might be worried a guy like me chased you down to kill you.”

Steve coughed out a laugh. Shaking his head. “Yeah, wouldn’t want that.” 

The sigh of relief Steve let out he felt down into his rusted bones. His fingers tightened their grip on Billy’s jacket as he pulled him into a hug. Wanted to be close as he could, because any want to run was evaporated. 

“Let’s just go dancing, Bill,” he asked softly. 

And he could feel Billy’s hair brush his own as he nodded back in reply, and it felt so real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you every one for reading!! I really really love this universe, the dirt and raw of it. I hope this ending is hopeful for y’all. Obviously they live happily ever after!!! And when they get married and adopt a kid they get free ramen for life. I imagine the older couple who owns the shop might eventually retire and leave it to Billy. Let him continue it on. I think he would look handsome in a chef hat and apron??? Well thanks again! Every comment and kudos are loved so so much!! Find me on tumblr at catharrington 🖤🖤🖤


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